Satisfied, Verna switched off the overhead light. Only one more task remained before she could sleep. In the darkness, she unbuckled her money belt, a soiled, flesh-colored corset, and counted out her remaining bills. She had $632 left. With fill-ups running almost $40 apiece, twice a day, and the ferry almost $300, that left $200, more or less, for her remaining food and sundries. It wasn’t much, but it didn’t have to last long. In Ketchikan she would be able to start drawing from her first paycheck immediately, and from then on she would be all right.

“Big trees tomorrow,” she said, reassured by her nightly accounting. She reattached the money belt and reclined the seat to find Lucy already fast asleep. She lay curled in a ball, her snout on her paws. Verna clucked, and patted her dog’s head. Then she closed her eyes, the road map spread out over her chest like a blanket.

Someone was banging on the window.

It was barely dawn. The windows were fogged with breath, and Verna couldn’t see anything beyond the hulking, silvery shadow behind the glass. A quick check told her the doors were still locked, and judging from the sound of occasional traffic on the street, there were other people close at hand, which was something. Any crime that might occur would have plenty of witnesses at least.

Lucy barked and Verna didn’t shush her. Perhaps the intruder would just go away. She could at least hope.

“You can’t sleep here, ma’am,” a man’s voice said. “Wake up. You can’t sleep out here. Not allowed.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Verna said, and huddled deeper in the warmth of her blankets.

The knock came again. “Hey! Wake up.” The voice was sterner this time.

“All right, all right,” she said. The initial shock of the awakening was already giving way to something more like grouchiness and irritation.

The shadow retreated. Verna roused and checked herself in the mirror. The reflection was not the most lovely she had ever seen. Her features looked harder than usual. Her eyes were hazy; her lips were thin; her jaw mannish and square. And the limp, unwashed blonde hair wasn’t helping matters. Her skin was chalky white, with a faint blush of red at the tip of her nose and in the thinness of her eyelids—her blood aura, someone had called it. She tried brushing out the worst of the knots in her hair with her fingers, but there wasn’t much to be done.